Naturalism and the Idea of Nature

Abstract

AbstractThere are many versions of naturalism. In contemporary Anglophone philosophy, the dominant versions are forms of scientific naturalism. After discussing three forms of scientific naturalism – eliminative, reductive, and nonreductive naturalism – I turn to the idea of nature that scientific naturalism presupposes, and I argue that the presupposed idea of nature is inadequate: It does not include everything in nature. I shall argue that all forms of naturalism – even so-called liberal naturalism, a nonscientific version – suffer from presupposed and unargued-for closure principles that limit the scope of reality. Finally, I'll briefly discuss my own view that I call ‘near-naturalism’.